If you’re a music blogger, a brand that deals with random musical stuff, a content creator for a music company or just someone looking for musically inclined article ideas – feel free to take what you need. Some have a standfirst, some have story outline/brief and are self-explanatory.

One thing that usually sits high on my skincare routine is cleansing. So that’s why I was excited to see Nu Skin’s latest product – the ageLOC LumiSpa Skin Cleanser. Here’s what I learnt about the product at the event.

I’d give up every kind of food, except seafood. I’ve been relishing all kinds of seafood ever since I can remember. My parents tell me I used to enjoy fried fish and prawns more than candy. And to tell you a secret…I still do! So you can imagine I was mighty excited when Novotel Clarke Quay in Singapore invited me to try out their special, limited period seafood buffet at The Square restaurant.

From April 6 to May 26, 2018, The Square is serving up a fabulous seafood buffet. And I can’t wait to tell you all about it. For starters, I love buffets. They’re a total value for money and you get to sample so many dishes. This one, in particular, is a steal as it features several expensive and exotic seafood.

I started something new recently. For every birthday, anniversary and random celebratory day, I’ll DIY a gift for close family and friends.

No doubt, it shall be supplemented with a practical and useable store-bought gift. But I love the idea of spending the time to creating something with my hands for people who mean something to me.

And with Valentine’s day around the corner, I thought I’ll share a cute and romantic gift you could make for your Harry Potter loving partner.

I made this little artwork for my husband for his birthday earlier this month. Like every child of the late 80s-early 90s, he grew up reading books and watching movies about JK Rowling’s fascinating world of wizards. If you’re dating or married to a Potterhead, you know in your heart this little DIY will make their day.

Have you realised how much trash you generate as just one individual? I never thought of trash or its consequences or the sheer size of it until very recently. In a bit to recycle and repurpose trash, I’ve been making small changes at home, hoping that someday it will all add up.

For starters, I’ve been collecting plastic boxes and glass bottles to repurpose them around the house. While reorganising my jewellery shelf, I put some of them to use. No, they aren’t ground breaking ideas, but I want to share them with you to get the wheels turning, to inspire you to repurpose.

For my bangles, I used a cider pint. It’s so handy and you can see all your bangles at one glance.

I can’t begin to tell you how easy this DIY really is. So I love beer/cider bottle caps. I used to collect a few, admire them for a while and trash them. Mainly because I didn’t know what to do with them. Lately, I’ve been trying to be conscious of the trash we create in our home and have been actively seeking ways to recycle and repurpose things.

The other day while reorganising my accessories I put an apple cider bottle and an egg carton to good use. It was a Little Creatures Pipsqueak Cider bottle that’s a beautiful brown. It also has the cutest little bottle cap and I couldn’t help but save one. I love the illustration on it.

I contemplated making a keychain, pendant or whatnot out of it. But I didn’t have any of the tools and buying them just to make one pendant seemed like a lot of work. So I thought of this easy DIY.

Also when I say it took me 1 minute to make it, I’m totally overexaggerating! It literally takes a few seconds if you have the things handy.

Moving to a new city can be fun, exciting and daunting in equal parts. But it helps to know that technology has your back. When we moved here late 2017, we relied heavily on apps and websites to make ourselves feel at home.

If you’ve just moved to Singapore or are just passing through, I guarantee this list right here is gonna be a lifesaver. My husband and I use all these apps on a regular basis, so rest assured these are reviewed and well-loved. This is one of two apps based stories.

This list includes only the Most Basic and Most Essential apps you will need on arriving in the country. No smartphone in Singapore ought to exist without these all-holy apps. Our second list of Must-Have apps which you can pick and choose depending on your preference.

* this info is relevant as of March 2018. I hope the future me will update the app list!

Does anyone really use salt and pepper shakers at home? Well, we don’t and I can’t remember the last time I felt the need to either. But they sometimes come in RIDICULOUSLY adorable shapes and you have to have them!

I love pandas and general panda-shaped paraphernalia. And years ago when I collaborated with Flipkart for this outdoor picnic for one, I couldn’t resist picking up these panda salt and pepper shakers. Look how cute they are! I’ve been using them as random decorative pieces (one of them broke recently) around the house.

But the other day I finally found a massive value pack of incense sticks at Little India, only to realise I didn’t have an incense stick holder when I got back home.

Tough day at work? Fight that urge to flip your desk and head to the nearest green patch for some fresh air and fresher perspective.

If you’re working in and around CBD, hang on to this list of nearby secret parks and patches to get your zen on.

Note: Ideally, I wanted to use Instagram embeds to show you the parks but WordPress is mean and won’t let me. Since I don’t have actual pictures, we shall have to make do with an assortment of random Singaporean park pictures I took last month.

So, it’s not even noon and the day isn’t going as planned? Take your lunch break at this green pocket sandwiched between two historical structures – the Nagore Durgha Shrine and the Thian Hock Keng temple. With a small water feature and shaded seating covered with vines, this little patch is perfect for quick pacing while you take deep breaths and strategise your next move.

Good for: Distracting yourself with a history lesson, practising presentations on life-size statues who won’t judge and some quick pacing

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Ever since 2017, my life has been a series of firsts. And well, for lunch today I made my first savoury oatmeal recipe and damn it was gooooood.

I’ve always been oddly reluctant to try oats mainly because as a lactose intolerant human I cannot stand the idea of packaged sweet oats with milk powder. Totally gives me the heebie-jeebies.

Now I’ve had a big fat packet of plain, no flavour instant oats sitting in my pantry looking pretty for two months. We picked it up because it’s a healthy choice but for some odd reason, I always thought making oats without milk would be hard and might taste blaah. I’ve been trying to get used to drinking soy milk, trying being the keyword, and thought one day I’ll have sweet oats like regular people.

But today for lunch, I thought let’s give this thing a try for fun when no one is watching.

So I looked up a few recipes, saw how simple it really was, decided I’m pro at this and winged it. And I’m kinda glad I did. This recipe turned out so yummy and tasty. And it was so ridiculously quick and easy to make.

I’m so stuffed right now I can barely move. It’s been over 4 hours since I ate lunch now and I feel so full. I didn’t even need to snack at 4pm!

Endless night bullies my soul
Leaving me with qualms instead of hope
Quiver and gather courage to stand
Shoveling roads with my own two hands
In the pitch black dark I saw a ray
Bright enough to light my way
When the moon erased from the sky
The brightest star was in your eyes

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I most genuinely don’t see the point of cooking for hours and days just for the food to disappear in a matter of minutes. The impermanence of it all is scary to me and mighty unmotivating. It’s especially daunting now that I’m taking extra efforts to make our lives healthier and cleaner.

This was my first event as a blogger in Singapore and I couldn’t have asked for anything better. Yamaha Music with Silent Disco Asia and FabCafe held Singapore’s first ever silent piano concert on Dec 21, 2017. It was held at night at ArtScience Museum at Marina Bay. And we were there to witness it all!

Young and mighty talented pianist Li Churen played several pieces on Yamaha’s hybrid Silent Piano. As the presenter pointed out, it’s built for regular people like us who live in apartments. It’s fitted with a magnificent “Quiet Mode”. In this mode, you can play the piano and listen to yourself play live on a set of headphones attached directly to the instrument.

It started a few days before New Year’s Eve and it still hasn’t stopped. It’s been pouring or drizzling in Singapore for a little over two weeks now and the temp has dropped drastically. I’m not complaining or anything but wearing full-length pants is a pain.

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Apart from getting married to D.R.R TrollKill aka the Love of my Life, we made another life-altering decision in 2017. We moved from India to Singapore. And from the word go, we fell in love with this place.

Singapore is a tiny red dot on the world map but it’s big on everything else. This listicle isn’t about fun Singaporean facts or a history lesson (that will come later because who doesn’t love history). It is, however, a lineup of things that make living here truly amazing. We’ve been here for almost three months now and although we have A LOT of exploring to do, we have managed to set up our little nest from scratch. And here’s what we love about this city-state we now call home.Continue reading “4 Things I Absolutely Love about Singapore”→

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My New Year Resolution (you can read bits of it here), like every year, is to travel more. But this year, we’re making extra efforts to see this resolution through. I’m writing this post for purely selfish reasons. I’m hoping that by putting abstract ideas into words, it will somehow magically make my resolve stronger and serve as a reminder of sorts. Because let’s face it… resolutions have a nasty reputation for dying a tragic death before the end of Jan.

If you’re anything like us, I bet you’re feeling a strong sense of wanderlust too (it’s a millennial syndrome). So this year, instead of hashtagging every other picture of your vacay from 2016 with #wanderlust, let’s do something about it. Let’s dream big, plan obsessively, book those non-refundable tickets and discover this third rock from the sun.Continue reading “#Wanderlust: Travelling with an Indian Passport”→

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Ah. Once again, this year pulled a Flash and sped away. I cannot believe it’s going to be 2018 in 30 days. In 30 days and nights, kids who were born at the turn of the millennium (80s and 90s kids, remember the Y2K frenzy?) will be legally old enough to vote, drive and get married. To give you a scarier sense of time… As of January 2018, Donald Trump would’ve been the President of USA for a whole year.

It’s been a long year.
And what a year it has been.

A lot has happened to this little lifestyle blogger in 2017. Almost all of it was unplanned, crazy, fun and life-changing. There were hard days and I’m trying harder to forget about them. But the good times, they supersede. Officially, 2017 will go down in my history as the MOST MONUMENTAL year of my life.

We’re legally a team now, D.R.R TrollKill & I. We got married in May 2017 and we did it on our terms. We moved out of India, away from everything/everyone we know and love. We set up our little nest in less than two weeks in the island country of Singapore.
Professionally, I made some bold, risky and pretty often stupid choices. I don’t regret them one bit.

In the story of this insignificant human, 2017 was the Year of Adulting. Having said that, I refuse to act like an adult. Being an adult is bloody boring. You might as well be a toilet brush or the filter that covers the sink drain – dead inside but full of crap.

Instead, I’ll try my very best not to let stereotypes, hypocrites, cynics and conformers put me in a mould. Instead of staring at my feet like an adult, I’ll stare at the sky and play connect the dots with the stars. Instead of living in a box like an adult, I’ll dance with the clouds. Instead of doing things because “what will XYZ say” like an adult, I’ll do things depending on “what will my heart say”. Instead of being afraid of change like an adult, I’ll chase it down at the speed of light. Instead of mindnumbing 9-5s like an adult, I’ll try to live and love 24/7 x 365.

Thank you, Twenty Seventeen. You’ve been the greatest.
Hello, Twenty Eighteen. You better be a riot.

This Thank You card was given to my husband D.R.R TrollKill by his ex-colleagues. Sums up exactly what I feel about 2017!

OMG. We’re incredibly excited about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Their engagement and marriage make a massive statement and I couldn’t be gladder. The Meghan Markle from Suits, a mixed raced Hollywood actor and humanitarian, is soon going to be Princess Meghan. Now, that’s a fairytale worth telling! One that says a big in-your-face to the rigid world, nasty media, racists and elitists of the world. And have you seen their CNN interview yet? It’s literally the cutest thing in the world. Both of them are rather “real” and that’s refreshing for a change. If you haven’t seen it, here is the link.

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Sure, wall paint is everyone’s go-to option. But the decor savvy people of the world have tapped into another pool of resource. Wall coverings have been around for ages but the past few years, the humble stick-on option has undergone a massive update and gained an even bigger following. From prints catering to every whim and fancy to iconic collaborations that will have you drooling, this is a revolution you cannot ignore.

With the plethora of options to choose from, you have the liberty of narrowing down on the right wall covering to suit your home, personality and identity. That’s one of its biggest perks -– it lets you show-off your individuality and describes you in more ways than one. If you’re anything like me, picking one out of thousands of delicious wall coverings can be overwhelming. Luckily, design authorities have zeroed in on a few global trends that are here to stay. Out of them, I’ve hand-picked 5 of my absolute favourites that have timeless and trendy written all over them. Continue reading “5 Contemporary Wallcovering Trends to Heart”→

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A year and a half ago, I was asked to describe myself as a writer during a team writing workshop held by my then-boss. This is what I penned down.

I often find myself wondering if writing is all I truly have to offer to this world. Or maybe I’ve been asking myself the wrong questions all along.

Q: Who am I as a writer?
A: To be fairly honest and precise: Insecure. It is a strange sort of a relationship where writing makes me incredibly nervous. So, I know what you’re thinking, why would I pursue something that terrifies me? Well, because it’s the very thing that simultaneously brings me peace. And isn’t that what we are all eventually after?

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I am one half of a two member editorial and content development studio called The Short Staff. As a full-time freelance writer and editor, I contribute to a bunch of print and digital publications including DNA India’s DNA Money supplement. Here’s a article that was published on May 5, 2017. Here’s an excerpt and the link to the full article.

As fate of the Kohinoor continues to be a giant question mark, this April, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) announced the homecoming of over a hundred antique pieces stolen and smuggled out of the country. As the interest in Indian antiques surges, auction houses, dealers and stores dealing with antiquities, vintage items and collectables are garnering new-found interest.

Image courtesy Pexels

International auction house Saffronart’s CEO Hugo Weihe points out, “It’s one area that has seen enormous growth in the past few years. But it’s quite undervalued, in more senses than one. India has an extraordinary heritage of 5,000 years or more and it has really been overlooked.” Saffronart holds live and online auctions of modern, contemporary and classical Indian art as well as offers services like art advisory, appraisals and valuations, and specialised art storage. Viewed on web and smartphones, their online auctions have seen sizeable activities and also exposes a larger, newer audience to the art of collecting rarities. Adapting to this democratic new medium makes auctions hugely accessible.

I’ve been cleaning out my closet… not figuratively, quite literally. I’ve been physically going through all the crap I’ve accumulated over 28 years of living. I’ll be moving out soon and I find myself holding on this aforementioned crap harder than ever. I haven’t even packed a little because the hoarding is a genuine problem.

Hoarding is also amazing. I’ve found so many forgotten things including a long exercise book. It’s hardbound and horrendous looking in green and yellow. Inside are meticulously number poems and self-pep talks from a teenage me. As I sat crossed leg on the cold floor of my lil’ bedroom, I flipped through pages of a young girl I don’t remember but somewhat recognise. It’s a fairly angst filled except I don’t remember the backstory/inspiration of each poem. I barely even remember who it’s for.

Want to hear the best part? It doesn’t matter anyway. It’s for me and now as I share this petite poem on this tiny blog… it’s for you.

I did it. I moved from the painful clutches of Blogger.com to semi-painful WordPress.com. I’m still not sure how right or wrong the decision was. All I know is right now, I’m not equipped to handle WordPress.org and the .com version allows me some time to concentrate less on the backend and more on the front.

This year is going to be epic. I’ve recently joined the Full-time Blogger and Freelance Writer and whatever-fun-things-come-my-way club. I’ve been in it for a grand total of 2 days and it’s been busy, liberating and even a little scary. As I mentioned in my recent Instagram post, this is perhaps the riskiest thing I’ve ever done. That’s part sad to think I haven’t done anything risky and also amazing because there’s always a start.

There’s a lot on the cards for 2017 – so many changes, so much evolution. For starters, I figured Slow Motion Thoughts ought to get a facelift too. Although I didn’t have the liberty to choose my own template from the web (WordPress.com doesn’t let you do that), I picked this particular pre-loaded theme Toujours. I love how it embraces negative space and totally resonates with my current fave aesthetic of minimalism.

I don’t have Photoshop or image editing softwares, so when I needed to work on the Site Title and Site Icon, I found myself on this web editor called Fotor. It has an odd URL with H5 in it but it’s totally legit. A few hours looking for free vector online (in jpeg and not ai) and chewing the brains of my Designer friends (Sirawon & Ayushi), resulted in this.

One of a five part blog series, these decor secrets will make you feeling rich… with information.

Quick and cost effective way of refresh a bedroom?Updating the bed linen and adding plenty of cushions and throws.

Measurements matter. Before buying any piece of furniture, check how much space it will take. To do this, take a piece of newspaper and make a template of the item. Place the template on the floor and fix it with masking tape to see if the dimensions work with your existing furniture.

Accent colours can be used as complementary colours. Use bright and vibrant hues in small quantities for that “wow factor”. Try to keep most of your room in tones and shades of a single colour, then pick out a few objects that can be in the accent colour.

Furniture with mirrored surfaces bounce light around and make a room look larger than it already is.

Interior design books are full of huge sofas that look great but in a small room they can be very overwhelming and might make a room look and feel tiny.

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Ah, the dread. A relative decides she wants to behold your beautiful face and says she’ll drop by soon or the husband calls and casually drops a bomb about his colleagues visiting or you entirely forgot that you called work friends over for tea. As you rack your overworked mind with all failed excuses you can use to get out of this predicament, a silent realisation sinks in. The house is in a complete mess. Panic, you will and rightly so but we suggest you keep the “why me?” wailing session short and crisp. A quick clean-up is on the charts and you are your own help. Good thing you have us to walk you through it.

THE BEDROOM TREATY

Start with reminding yourself the best news of the day: Your unexpected guests are not going to set foot in the bedroom. This realisation will set you free, calm those nerves and bring out the sly evil in you! You thought right, the bedrooms can be utterly ignored and utilised as temporary dumping grounds (Insert: creepy resonating laugh).

Remember when you were a 17 year old kid who thought it was so cool to skip class and hang out in the canteen? Well, James Charles is a lot like you… NOT. He is perhaps the coolest 17 year old around right now. An internet sensation, James is a makeup artist with skills that will put anyone to shame. More recently, an American makeup brand even signed him up to be their first male model, making history of sorts.

We’ve been following James on Instagram and YouTube for a while and well, we cannot get enough of his extraordinary skill. We love his ideas, his 100 km/hr talking speed, those insanely relatable tweets and the way he deals with haters.

It thrills me no end to see the product design scene in India is suddenly on an adrenaline rush. It’s like watching a garden bloom on Discovery channel time lapse video. I’ve been writing on design and interiors for five odd years now, so I’m constantly coming across new brands, labels, studios and designers to admire.

Recently, I came across a new furniture design studio called Project Wood. No brownie points for guessing that they love making things with wood. Run by Kanika Pahwa, Project Wood organically grew out of Studio Ezube, New Delhi based interior design firm.

Styled and photographed by Aditi Gaitonde

“As an interior designer, I’m constantly on the lookout for accessories that I can use for projects. Since I often couldn’t find accents to suit my requirements, I began designing and making my own accessories and furniture pieces,” explains Kanika about Project Wood, a 2-month-old product design studio. Most of their creations are handmade and almost all of them can be customised too.

Newer products are added every fortnight to the e-shop, I’ve already made a wishlist of my favourite five. Use the Code: SMT20 to get 20% off site wide discount on ProjectWood.in.

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Let’s talk about periods. It’s as much a part of our lives as breathing and burping (yes, girls burp ok). Hormones are all over the place but then again that’s why we have chocolates. For me, I’m constantly worrying about staining my dress or the chair I’m sitting on for 8 hours straight at work. Did I mention overall discomfort that leads to general crankiness? Yeahhh… add that to the list right next to checking the pad every few hours. Why am I tell you all this?

Because I truly believe that periods are not the end of the world. It’s no reason for us to stress or worry and it’s definitely no reason to stay away from normal activities that make us happy. According to me, the one thing that makes periods a trying time is the discomfort – physical and emotional. And we must do what we can to eliminate this feeling. We have chocolate, wine, books and Zayn Malik to keep us emotionally upbeat. In a bid to reduce the physical discomfort, Whisper innovated and came up with something cool.

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I am one half of a two member editorial and content development studio called The Short Staff. As a full-time freelance writer and editor, I contribute to a bunch of print and digital publications including DNA India’s DNA Money supplement. Here’s my piece that was published on Mar 3, 2017. Here’s an excerpt and link to the full article.

It’s safe to say that millennials have a perpetual case of wanderlust. The young Indian traveller has evolved from cookie-cutter tours crammed with “touristy” sight seeing. They want more from their holidays than just Instagram-worthy pictures and Facebook check-ins. They want experiences over luxuries, purpose over presentation and stories over stringent itineraries. They want to put to work, leave a mark, get inspired and take away skills and stories.

Image courtesy The Remote Life

Online travel company Make My Trip’s India Travel Report 2016 revealed that young Indians are the driving force behind the changing travel landscape, and about 66% of the total trips on the website were made by travellers in the age group 18-35 years. Travel entrepreneurs across the country echo the insight but reveal an underlying trend that promises to turn into a movement.

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I’ve known Anish for a few months now. And if there’s anything that can be said about him, it’s this – his passion for photography is as evident and blazing like the sun at the peak of summer. Professionally, he’s a fashion photographer who equally loves shooting portraits. Personally, he’s my favourite Punjabi.

The photo essay that you’ll experience in a few scrolls from now was shot a few years ago in his homeland. The words describing it are his. The perceptive will gauge the irony in the title of the essay. But they would also be right to think of it as gloomy. It is. In most parts, it’s hazy to a point of distorted. There’s a sense of longing and uncertainty that pricks through the skin. It’s cold, yes, but winter is more than the drop of temperature and the absence of warmth. It’s also a brutal reminder of death where the landscape mourns and come to terms with closing curve of life.

Photo Essay: Anish Sarai’s Winter Epiphany

Timeless thoughts of a winter’s stare;
eyes gazing over a landscape bare.
Memories drift on a blustery breeze;
dying light ushers in the freeze.
Reaching out for a grasp on the present;
stillness sets in, alone, and desolate.
Future unknown, outcome uncertain;
brilliance shadowed by a drawn curtain.